directory (in `.home` in `$NIX_BUILD_TOP`). This adjustment is necessary for
certain packages that require write access to a home directory.

By setting `HOME` to a writable directory, this setup hook prevents failures in
packages that attempt to write to the home directory.

### Bintools Wrapper and hook {#bintools-wrapper}

The Bintools Wrapper wraps the binary utilities for a bunch of miscellaneous purposes. These are GNU Binutils when targeting Linux, and a mix of cctools and GNU binutils for Darwin. \[The “Bintools” name is supposed to be a compromise between “Binutils” and “cctools” not denoting any specific implementation.\] Specifically, the underlying bintools package, and a C standard library (glibc or Darwin’s libSystem, just for the dynamic loader) are all fed in, and dependency finding, hardening (see below), and purity checks for each are handled by the Bintools Wrapper. Packages typically depend on CC Wrapper, which in turn (at run time) depends on the Bintools Wrapper.

The Bintools Wrapper was only just recently split off from CC Wrapper, so the division of labor is still being worked out. For example, it shouldn’t care about the C standard library, but just take a derivation with the dynamic loader (which happens to be the glibc on linux). Dependency finding however is a task both wrappers will continue to need to share, and probably the most important to understand. It is currently accomplished by collecting directories of host-platform dependencies (i.e. `buildInputs` and `nativeBuildInputs`) in environment variables. The Bintools Wrapper’s setup hook causes any `lib` and `lib64` subdirectories to be added to `NIX_LDFLAGS`. Since the CC Wrapper and the Bintools Wrapper use the same strategy, most of the Bintools Wrapper code is sparsely commented and refers to the CC Wrapper. But the CC Wrapper’s code, by contrast, has quite lengthy comments. The Bintools Wrapper merely cites those, rather than repeating them, to avoid falling out of sync.

A final task of the setup hook is defining a number of standard environment variables to tell build systems which executables fulfill which purpose. They are defined to just be the base name of the tools, under the assumption that the Bintools Wrapper’s binaries will be on the path. Firstly, this helps poorly-written packages, e.g. ones that look for just `gcc` when `CC` isn’t defined yet `clang` is to be used. Secondly, this helps packages not get confused when cross-compiling, in which case multiple Bintools Wrappers may simultaneously be in use. [^footnote-stdenv-per-platform-wrapper] `BUILD_`- and `TARGET_`-prefixed versions of the normal environment variable are defined for additional Bintools Wrappers, properly disambiguating them.

A problem with this final task is that the Bintools Wrapper is honest and defines `LD` as `ld`. Most packages, however, firstly use the C compiler for linking, secondly use `LD` anyways, defining it as the C compiler, and thirdly, only so define `LD` when it is undefined as a fallback. This triple-threat means Bintools Wrapper will break those packages, as LD is already defined as the actual linker which the package won’t override yet doesn’t want to use. The workaround is to define, just for the problematic package, `LD` as the C compiler. A good way to do this would be `preConfigure = "LD=$CC"`.

### CC Wrapper and hook {#cc-wrapper}

The CC Wrapper wraps a C toolchain for a bunch of miscellaneous purposes. Specifically, a C compiler (GCC or Clang), wrapped binary tools, and a C standard library (glibc or Darwin’s libSystem, just for the dynamic loader) are all fed in, and dependency finding, hardening (see below), and purity checks for each are handled by the CC Wrapper. Packages typically depend on the CC Wrapper, which in turn (at run-time) depends on the Bintools Wrapper.

Dependency finding is undoubtedly the main task of the CC Wrapper. This works just like the Bintools Wrapper, except that any `include` subdirectory of any relevant dependency is added to `NIX_CFLAGS_COMPILE`. The setup hook itself contains elaborate comments describing the exact mechanism by which this is accomplished.